Meathead Management Principles: Don't Be Dead From the Neck Up

Look for my publication about management principles by Summer 2014.  I'm excited about bringing my sales management and business management skills together in one manual.  Many of these principles have been around for a while but there will be a few major differences in the way I combine and utilize different techniques.

Here's the outline for "Meathead Management Principles: You're Not Dead From the Neck Up"

(it's a working title in progress.  Not much progress since I'll need permission from Norman Lear and CBS...)

• Give the 5 major principles of management styles that even a meathead like me could follow and thrive.

• How implementing the science of Emotional Intelligence I learned and implemented from my sales management background transferred easily into business management.  

• Every sales example will have a business example correlation.  The examples will relate to every business situation and every business size and climate.

• Specific situations based on the above statement and exercises you can do immediately.

• Quantifying your results.  Prove to your boss you’re not a meathead.

• Wrapping everything together and creating buy in from your team no matter how big or small. 
Maintaining consistency and model pliability – I will illustrate the coaching and feedback system I developed which is modifiable to fit everybody's situation.

Here's a preview of one of those principles titled Personalizing Your Message 

The Birth of the Principle To This Meathead

I’m a big believer in personalizing anything I want to learn, remember, or teach to others.

You’ll see this in any formula for success if this rule is followed.  Memorization techniques that tell people to link otherwise unrelated words or concepts into a silly story so they will remember – that’s asking somebody to personalize.  When you write a book describing the habits of successful people you are reading specific examples of specific people.  The story is one you can relate to yourself or to others you may know – that’s personalizing.  When a politician comes on television, references your town and introduces Mrs. Jones, mother of three, out of work because the factory closed and then tells you to vote for him or her to keep this from happening again – that’s personalizing.

I learned this early on in my sales career.  It actually becomes easier the more you personalize.  You become better at reaching back into your experiences.  Better at listening and observing your surroundings.  Better at taking a concept or idea and making it easier to teach, sell, or simply remember. Reaching back into your experiences is fairly simple and I'll go over that process later.  Listening and observing and relating this information to a personal part of your life and your customer's life just takes a little practice.  

Observing your surroundings is the key in helping you create that personalizing experience.  If I was going to make a brand new sales call I did much more than research the company.  I asked a lot of questions not just to the purchasing manager with whom I had the appointment but I would poke around the plant or warehouse and take notes of what I saw.  The most valuable information I ever gleaned from a potential customer I learned from the warehouse manager or the loading dock guys of the company in my sights.

In order to make this next point stay planted in your head one thing I might suggest to you is you've done this type of exercise before.  Ever gone into a store to return an item without a receipt?  If you went in expecting something to be done simply by throwing the item on the returns counter and getting your money back I’m sure you were quickly disappointed.  Most of us know what we need to do and are realistic in our expectations about getting a cash refund or getting a merchandise credit.  You start thinking about how you lost your receipt or how you got the item as a gift but it was something you already had.  Maybe it was a sweater that was so ugly Bill Cosby wouldn't wear it.

Chances are you have some semblance of social skills because you’re already a successful manager.  You know being polite with the clerk will get you much closer to your goal of a total refund.  But you also are ready to “personalize” your plight if being polite doesn’t work:

“Bless my daughter’s heart she meant so well giving me this sweater for Christmas.”

“I really was hoping for a different kind of table runner but my son got this one for me as a gift.  It’s not his fault he didn't know my Hummel figures wouldn't stay standing on such a thick runner.”

These may sound silly and obscure but they’re actual situations from people I know.  When you’re faced with this situation you will come up with something and it will be personalized.  

You can expand on that and personalize more than just a story for a store clerk.

Taking that information and using it to my advantage was critical to my success and it will be for you too.  Don’t misread that statement.  I did not take advantage of my customers or prospects just as you didn’t take advantage of the returns counter person.  It just takes a more creative approach to personalize your situation whether it’s as a salesperson, teacher, football coach, store manager, or Weight Watchers coach.  I learned early on this was the key to my sales success.  I had to dig deep and be creative but it worked a lot of the time.  This was something that I learned not from a book or seminar but from some very successful sales managers I worked for.  Here’s an example of personalization in action.

The concrete admixture company I worked for was far behind the competition in terms of having good, large distributors for our products and service.  One particular customer who already had my competition established in their distribution line had been a challenge for our company.  It was almost impossible to get a foot in the door.  I persisted and grudgingly was given time to speak to the purchasing agent.  He was not a lot of help during my qualifying call before our meeting in a few weeks.  This happened before you could “Google” anything.  I just had a company truck and an old Nextel two-way phone in my arsenal.  But I had the appointment.  I was going to return this ugly sweater without a receipt so I better be digging deep for how I’m going to personalize this.

I had been to their business a few times but made the mistake of just knocking on the front door.  I was going to be in the area before my official sales appointment so I thought I would nose around the warehouse and yard a while.  What an eye opener it was to speak to the warehouse manager and some of the loaders.  The personalization started as I started walking through the parking lot.

“Who are you looking for?” the warehouse loader asked.  The personalization started.

“I’m not looking for anybody in particular.  I've got an appointment with Roger next week and I just wanted to get an idea of what you guys do here.”  Or some kind introductory words.  I introduce myself, shake hands and continue on.  I almost told him I wanted to return a sweater.

“I just don’t like coming in to a place without getting a general idea about seeing what goes on behind the sales counter.”  I said.  “I guess I got used to doing this ever since I took my truck in once for service and the service manager let me come back and look at the shop.  I was impressed about how clean it was.  I’m not sure if the insurance company for that Ford dealer liked that I was walking around the shop…”  I interrupted. “…this yard looks immaculate…” Everything I said was true.  I don’t remember the details of the rest of the conversation but we ended up talking about trucks, softball and Ohio State football for a long time.

If you think about personalization it’s no different from when we speak to a close friend.  Sometimes this works sometimes it doesn't.  The only difference is I’m learning new things the more we speak and I’m relating some of this information to a personal part of my life.  On this day it would lead to something pretty amazing.

I walked back with the warehouse manager and we started talking more about the business.  He had a competitor’s color dispensing machine.  Without going into much detail these machines can be a maintenance nightmare – all of our machines not just theirs.  Pigments dry and hoses clog.  Formulas are often inconsistent making each batch a different color.  And it’s not an easy fix making concrete all the same color after this happens.  We started talking about color dispensing machines in general.

“Sometimes these machines don’t circulate the pigments well enough especially if the warehouse is cold.  You guys seem to keep this place nice and warm.” A true statement.  This was a root cause found early on with our machine I was just curious about the competitor’s machine.  I look over and he’s shaking his head.

“This G.D. machine has been nothing but trouble for the last two G.D. weeks.  I can’t get the one red pigment to pump we've had to hand load it in the trucks after weighing it out by hand.” I knew exactly what he was doing.  Not only was I surprised he WOULD he do that, but given the tight tolerances he was actually ABLE to do that.  “And the G.D. rep for this company says he can’t be here until next week.”

“You mind if I look at the machine while I’m here?”  He looked at me like I was nuts.  I was in dress slacks and nice shoes and a very white dress shirt.

  

“If you can at least tell us what’s wrong and how to fix it that would be great but you don’t have to.”

  

I tucked my tie into my shirt and popped off the back of the control panel.  These are fairly easy machines.  If they’re not clogged then it’s a pump or switch that’s usually out.  Anything else would involve the main circuit board and you know that’s fried right away.  I went to my truck and got my multimeter, did a resistance check on the solenoid dedicated to the red pigment line in question and found it to be bad.

I replaced the solenoid with one I had in my truck.  You would have thought I brought bars of gold to everybody there.  When I showed up for my meeting with the purchasing manager a few weeks later the first thing he asked me was if my pigments would work in my competitor’s machine.  You bet they would.

Obviously not every sales pre-call ended with this dramatic of an outcome.  But it worked most of the time.  The constant here is looking for a way to humbly and honestly personalize your situation to elicit a positive response or trigger an emotional response to make you and/or your idea memorable.  Top leaders do it.  Top salespeople do it.  Top managers do it too.